At the same time, Beijing is sending a strong signal to domestic investors, aiming to rebuild confidence in Chinese equities, create positive expectations for future returns and support domestic innovation, ahead of what could become a busy period for Chinese AI-related companies coming to market.

Over the past week we've seen a number of major announcements, all arriving within a very tight window, and that seems no coincidence. China is making moves, and the US-China race to dominate the future of AI appears firmly back on.

• Moonshot's Kimi K3 AI model was ranked fourth out of 187 leading AI models on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, placing it among the world's highest-performing frontier models.

(source: https://artificialanalysis.ai/models/kimi-k3)

• Moonshot AI is reportedly set to raise capital in the private markets at a valuation of US$31.5 billion, ahead of a Hong Kong IPO later this year.
• The widely held view that China was six to twelve months behind the US in broad AI capability has been challenged, with many now believing the race to AI dominance through 2030 is far closer than previously assumed.
• ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) is due to IPO on 27 July, raising CNY57.9 billion, making it the second largest mainland Chinese IPO ever.
• As China's leading DRAM producer, accounting for around 8% of global DRAM supply, CXMT's IPO has not only sent ripples through China's capital markets, but has also moved firmly onto the radar of global investors as it looks to take market share from Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron.
• Given the extraordinary investor demand to participate in the CXMT IPO, expectations are growing that China's IPO market could accelerate, with a number of AI and technology companies expected to follow.
• At the same time, Chinese authorities have stepped up efforts to rebuild confidence in domestic equity markets, mobilising the "National Team", with several state-backed investment funds signalling they will buy domestic equities. The CSRC has also held meetings with major market participants, while the government continues to support the AI and semiconductor industries.
• Chinese authorities are also reportedly considering restrictions on the export of advanced chip intellectual property and frontier AI models, highlighting AI's growing strategic importance.

It is the CXMT IPO on 27 July that is generating the greatest interest across domestic media and increasingly throughout the global investment community.

Reported demand from mainland investors has been extraordinary, with reports suggesting the retail tranche was 212 times oversubscribed, while institutional demand reached 570 times the available allocation.

That demand reflects more than simply an attractive valuation. Priced at CNY8.66 per share, many investors believe CXMT has come to market at a significant discount to comparable US and Korean memory companies, as well as many Chinese semiconductor peers.

More importantly, AI memory has become one of the strongest investment themes of 2026. Demand for DRAM continues to surge as AI infrastructure expands across data centres, personal computers, smartphones and gaming. With only a handful of global suppliers, pricing power and expanding margins have driven exceptional revenue and earnings growth across the sector.

CXMT also has ambitious plans to increase its share of the global DRAM market from 8% to 11% by 2028, while expanding production into the high-growth High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) market.

To put that level of demand into context, Pepperstone recently launched a CXMT Perpetual CFD, allowing traders to express a view on where CXMT's share price may open on its first day of trading, and then continue trading once the shares begin trading on Shanghai's STAR Market.

The Perpetual CFD is currently priced at US$6.6232.

CXMT has become a national success story, taking on the world's largest memory manufacturers at a time when Beijing is actively rebuilding confidence in its domestic equity market and accelerating investment into AI and semiconductors.

Taken together, the launch of Kimi K3, renewed support for China's equity market, measures to protect strategic AI technologies and the landmark CXMT IPO suggest China is entering a new phase in its AI development. Whether viewed as a semiconductor leader, an AI infrastructure play or a barometer of investor confidence, CXMT and the Pepperstone Perpetual CFD are both worth keeping firmly on the radar.